Ah, well, my potstickers have never been works of art. They're decidedly homemade looking, but they are tasty. Normally, I would pan-fry these but my cousins were starving. They wanted to eat now!Potstickers Stuffed with Ground Pork and Turkey, Bamboo Shoots, and Cabbage
The recipe for the potstickers wrappers is adapted from Grace Young's "The Wisdom of the Chinese Kitchen: Classic Family Recipes for Celebration and Healing." The dipping sauce is adapted from a Ming Tsai episode I saw on PBS.
For 18 large potstickers you'll need:
For wrappers:
2 cups white flour
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup boiling water
For filling:
3/4 lb ground pork and turkey
1/2 can bamboo shoots, diced
1 cup cabbage, chopped finely
For dipping:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup vinegar
2 scallions, sliced
1 tblsp dried chili peppers
The trickiest part is the wrappers. When the water boils, measure out 3/4 cup of water and pour it over 2 cups of regular white flour and 1/4 tsp salt. Then with a wooden spoon, carefully fold the flour and water together until thoroughly mixed. If you're adventurous enough and the dough isn't too hot, you can knead it with your hands. I just knead it in the bowl, jabbing a bit at a time until the dough is warm enough to touch. Boiling water is essential for a tender, pliable, and thin potsticker wrapper.
Cover the dough with plastic wrap and a towel and let rest for about an hour.
Take about 1/4 of the dough at a time and roll it as flat as possible with a rolling pin. Cut circles with a biscuit cutter, a drinking glass, or a small rice bowl. Mine were roughly 3 inches in diameter. If you want to be really authentic, take small portions of dough and shape it into circles with your hands. My method is a lot faster. Repeat until you've used up all the dough.
Fill each wrapper with a spoonful of the ground meat mixture and fold in half, pressing along the edges to seal the potstickers.
Fill a large pot with water and when the water boils, drop in the potstickers and turn the heat down to medium high. The potstickers are done when they rise to the surface of the water. Pan-fry them now if you wish.
Serve with the soy sauce-vinegar mixture.
You probably have enough filling left for another batch of potstickers. Or you can freeze it for next time like I usually do. Or you can make about 2 dozen wontons boiled and fried with ground pork and turkey, bamboo shoots, and cabbage stuffing.
Potstickers are supposed to look like that, right? The frozen ones I bought have that "wrinkled" look too!
ReplyDeleteI want to eat now!
I've often wanted to pan fry them, but didn't know how long they would take. Seems like it would be difficult to get all the surfaces to cook evenly (versus immersing in oil or water).
ReplyDeleteI was wondering what the difference is between hot water dough and cold water dough? I've seen both kinds for wrapper recipes. Do they have different textures?
ReplyDeleteTigerfish,
ReplyDeleteWell, the frozen kind usually have these nice little pleats, I don't do that. It's all the same in my belly though. :)
Nikki,
If pan-frying, I would just do one side until they're nice and golden crispy. And I don't worry too much about whether it's all completely fried since it's still tender from being boiled.
Amy,
Thanks for pointing it out. I've edited the post to say that boiling dough will create a more pliable, tender, and thinner wrapper. The hot water makes the glutens in the wheat more resilient so you can keep rolling the dough without any cracks or drying out.
is that how you make dumplings! looks simple. :D i wanna try!
ReplyDeleteBC,
ReplyDeleteTry! Try! :)
WC - could I do this with all turkey? Or shrimp?
ReplyDeleteYears ago (when I still ate pork) for my Dad's birthday, his gift was that he'd pick out a menu - and my sister and I would cook it. He chose items from the Time Life cookbook series, and we did BBQ spare ribs, spicy stir fried cabbage and, home made potstickers. We even made the dough and I think we made the dough into balls and then rolled them out into circles. Your method looks way faster!
Oddlyme,
ReplyDeleteI would do ground turkey or a combo of ground turkey and ground shrimp. You can pretty much substitute ground turkey for any of my recipes that use ground pork. I think just shrimp alone isn't enough to bind the filling.
The small individual balls method is more "authentic," but I'm lazy. :P Just as long as you roll the dough as thin as you can, it's fine. If you're impatient, you can even fold them right away instead of letting the dough rest.